The OP makes some valid points. They are the reasons i do not play as tank any more and jumped on the dps bandwagon. I just got tired trying to explain the basics of aggro management over and over again and argue with idiots all the time.
Great thing about SWTOR is, that all you do is go do your own thing, or join pvp. I know understand why a game that focuses totally on forced grouping, would totally fail as a game today.
FF XIV ARR does and it's the #2 mmorpg out right now with SWTOR under it. What happened in SWTOR was the flashpoints take like 2 hours to do and people get so bored there like, "Spacebar, spacebar". Well, im new. I dont wanna spacebar my way through.
Does not help that we got developers that never worked on an mmorpg before either. All the staff came from a single player console backround. - BTW the Doctors told us this too. Before they left and all.
BTW, any game has different grouping methods. Try, going in with a pre made party? That's what I do.
Games focused on grouping teaches the players the group mechanics as they play but TOR is focused on soloplayers so when you get those few group flashpoints most players just don't know what to do.
The problem in many modern games is that you don't have to group for the content before the endgame, in most cases you actually levels up faster if you solo, so when players hit the endgame they have zero idea what to do and it is a disaster. It is the main reason to why so many players skip the endgame and run a few alts and then bungee over to a new game.
Too much forced grouping have the problem that you need other players to want to run the same content you need which is hard in mid level and less popular places. Due to that most games cut the pre-endgame grouping or made it pointless but it honestly don't work if you keep group dungeons and raids as your main endgame.
There are honestly 2 problems here:
1. Grouping needs to be worth the effort. The game needs to award people for learning how to group early in the game. Usually today you level faster by grinding soloquests and while the grouping gear might be slightly better you outlevel that gear in a few hours anyways.
2. All mid level grouping areas becomes pointless content after 3 months after release. Only a few players are at the level where it is worth to bother running them and still is interesting and fun.
Now this can be fixed in several ways. First of all needs running dungeons and such give far much more XP and loot than just grinding easy solo quests. Risk Vs reward is important. And dungeon gear needs to look different as well.
Secondly you need to solve the problem of people outleveling the content really fast. You can do this in many ways, like GW2 downleveling, cutting down the powergap a lot so stuff don't become grey after just a few levels. Maybe getting rid of the levels altogether while you cut the powergap..
You also needs the dungeon to drop relevant gear for the player. Mentoring down to a mid level dungeon and getting gear you just can't use wont work.
Grouping is what makes MMOs amazing but the problem is that it have been almost made pointless today. And I am not saying we need to get back to the days of EQ and M59 but we need something that makes it work again.
Your reasoning has nothing to do with why.Nor does a bad player or a bad pug have anything to do weather it is a good idea or not.
1 why build a game to play alongside others if you don't actually interact with others,it is as simple as a single player game,so again why bother with online?
2 a BAD developer and BAD game design does make a HUGE difference on the outcome.Blizzard did the same design in WOW and it proves at least to me,that MOST developers don't have any clue or business making online MMO's.
You cannot expect players to play SOLO 99% of the time,then figure those same players are going to be great interacting with others.Terrible design every dev keeps copying,you need to enforce grouping at ALL times,not just once in a while.
3 Grouping gives a combat design FAR MORE versatility and depth,so why would you not want that,unless as mentioned,your a bad developer with no clue how to do it.
What do people do in real life?Well they work with other people,you learn to help each other,get along with others.Imagine if every time we see a mistake or something we don't like,we fire all employees,there would be no work force or any owners.
bottom line ,simple answer,EA,Bioware,Blizzard and MANY more are terrible MMO designers,they should stick to single player games.You cannot simply blame a design when it has PROVEN to work ,while on the other hand we have seen that bad dev's prove they can ruin the idea totally.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
There are 2 different types of Forced Grouping. There is FFXI forced grouping which required you to have a full group to level at all where anytime you were online past level 10 you had to be in a group to do anything. Them days are gone and should never return because let’s face the facts them days you needed you would have to be in a group all the time.
Then there is FFXIV Forced grouping where you need to do the instances as you level up. This is should be done today in MMOs to show people how to play their character and play their Role. Let’s be honest here, if you can solo everything in game from level 1 to max level you become a useless player at end game. I know I played with countless people like this in every MMO starting with WOW. The only thing I will say on WOWs behalf before WOTLK came out most players knew how to play their class. The reason was because while yes classes where fairly easy in Vanilla and TBC to learn however content was not easy until WOTLK nor was there any convenience in making a group.
So that brings me to the core points why groups suck today if you are not running with friends OR trying to get a premade group of likeminded players to run an instance. The First is Convenience the Second being Easy group content, the Third is Soloing everything until max level (a way to get around doing any group content while leveling)
Convenience – The reason why convenience is bad is a few reasons. People then come to expect to run 4 instances in an hour and are in it only for themselves. You then also have the reason of people become complete ass holes because they will never see you again vs if you were a premade from the same server you will get a bad name and after a while no one will want to group with you. You also have the reason that all 4 or 5 people in that full pug might want different things out of the group not just the fastest run. Add all these together and you have shitty groups
Easy Group Content – Starting with WOTLK you could pull packs of Mobs and AOE them down then keep pulling packs of mobs until the boss. You could run instances this way over and over again using 1 or 2 buttons just to kill all the mobs. Why is this bad? How many people have you known in groups that do not even know more than a few spells? How many of them no longer pay attention to positioning and don’t care if they pull extra mobs. Yep that all started here with fast runs that required no skill no coordination to do. Just DPS with AOEs or with Rotations, never learning to CC a target or don’t pull more than 1 pack at a time, or kill orders. All of that went away with easy content.
These 2 things alone killed MMO grouping then you add in the fact that today its almost faster to just quest to max level and never having to learn your roll in a group. That would be fine however where do you expect people to learn how to group for end game content? The Answer is you don’t a large number of the player base playing solo to max level will never learn to play in a group unless the group content is Easy content like WOW instances and LFR raids are. Why do I say that? Because they will know only enough to play tank and spank content that have no mechanics that will kill you unless 23 people all go AFK at the same time. If there is any mechanic like SoO Wing 2 first boss where you need team work you will likely wipe all night.
So let’s rehash my points and look to the future.
Grouping sucks today because Convenience of LFD tools, Easy Content that can be sped through will little risk to wipe for mistakes, and solo leveling where you do not have to step into groups until max level. All 3 have killed the MMO genera. Yes I say killed because of the fact how many new MMOs come out today and are piss poor quality and groups all suck. Yep it will remain this way I would say for another 3 to 5 years until the Indie fad worn out (yes it’s a fad which will not take hold) and people will be like this sucks and quit MMOs all together for several years and forget about the games being easy. Then when a new AAA MMO comes out Grouping will be forced I feel at the level of FFXIV where you need to get groups for group content however it’s not over loaded with group content to level. This group content will require some level of knowing your role, your character and aware of what is going on around you. This content will also not be quick 15 minute runs, it will be somewhere in the range of 45 to 90 minute runs deepening do people know the content and how much needs to be explained. We will also be past an Automated group finder tool because we will likely be on Mega server technology, not 1 single server but more Mega server or 2 for a region. This will push the need for a LFD tool to the waist side and you will likely see FFXIV’s Party finder tool which is where WOW’s current Party Finder tool came from.
One last point I want to cover here is why would anyone play an MMO to do nothing but solo? If you think this is the best way then here is what you get. MMOs that fail to be Sub based MMO going F2P and finding ways to nickel and dime you every chance they get. Soon this Business model will get so bad that the pay wall will be so hard that F2P players will be paying because Greedy CEOs will want money from even this group and will force them to pay or never advance. It will come to this, US CEOs today are overly Greedy. They are no longer happy with running a business on a 30 or 40% profit margin they want to aim for 90% and will destroy their business to get that. Look at how many companies have gone under because overly greed CEOs. Its going happen here.
So what if you like to SOLO? Pay $60 for a single player game and be happy with it. An MMO is no place for that shit. Its too dam expensive to make an MMO and to operate an MMO on B2P only where Subs are not coming in, and yes this is why Cashshops will get out of hand and already hard. MMOs should be for people who want to play with other people because these people bring friends into an MMO. A SOLO player does not because they do not make friends or get involved with groups. They want to play on their own and playing a single player game is best for this.
No offense but based on your typing and your description of the difference between solo and group play, i would wager to say you are the stupid person. No offense. And if i get a temp ban for this you should also temp ban the OP for calling people in general stupid. cause not only is that most likely not the OP's real problem it's just plain ignorant.
Do you like lollipops? Suck it. Don't bite you greedy twit.
The Status Quo of the Large Companies telling us players how to play will come to an end. It's called the +, and it can only happen through the + . The + is the only WAY, TRUTH, and SPAWN.
You're all being played and you don't know why. It's understandable. That was predicted.
Originally posted by Kamofila No offense but based on your typing and your description of the difference between solo and group play, i would wager to say you are the stupid person. No offense. And if i get a temp ban for this you should also temp ban the OP for calling people in general stupid. cause not only is that most likely not the OP's real problem it's just plain ignorant.
HAHa, so since i didnt take the time to type to your standards, i must be stupid. I could care less if I get banned or you get banned, or the whole site shuts down. As for you calling me stupid, for my discription of the group play in this game, you obviously never played the game. Your making it sounds like i didnt even hit the ball park. I told you to the t how the game is, not my opion on it, not make believe shit, go into the game, and play it for 100 hours, and come back here, and tell us all how I am wrong.
What we liked was encouraged grouping, and being rewarded for it. It was harder, so it needed incentives and deserved to be rewarded. The best games always give you multiple ways to play.
Except for forced grouping in every raid and every dungeon of almost any MMORPG plus every 5v5 MOBA and any group based game that forces you on a team where literally millions of people like it.
MOBAs arent even comparable to SWTOR, or any MMO. As for raids and dungeons, I dont know what MMOPRG you are talking about, but in SWTOR, none of that is forced upon you, you can get just as good equipment from doing other things.
Sure MOBAs are comparable, pretty much any battleground, sorry warzone, is the same thing, team based matches with forced grouping. Ever play huttball? Are you really going to tell me in dungeons, sorry flashpoints, and raids people are not forced to group with other people in order to complete the content?
If you want to do the solo story and some crafting fine but don't act like people are not forced to group to do all the content I just mentioned because they are. On top of that my point stands that millions of people love it.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Comments
FF XIV ARR does and it's the #2 mmorpg out right now with SWTOR under it. What happened in SWTOR was the flashpoints take like 2 hours to do and people get so bored there like, "Spacebar, spacebar". Well, im new. I dont wanna spacebar my way through.
Does not help that we got developers that never worked on an mmorpg before either. All the staff came from a single player console backround. - BTW the Doctors told us this too. Before they left and all.
BTW, any game has different grouping methods. Try, going in with a pre made party? That's what I do.
Games focused on grouping teaches the players the group mechanics as they play but TOR is focused on soloplayers so when you get those few group flashpoints most players just don't know what to do.
The problem in many modern games is that you don't have to group for the content before the endgame, in most cases you actually levels up faster if you solo, so when players hit the endgame they have zero idea what to do and it is a disaster. It is the main reason to why so many players skip the endgame and run a few alts and then bungee over to a new game.
Too much forced grouping have the problem that you need other players to want to run the same content you need which is hard in mid level and less popular places. Due to that most games cut the pre-endgame grouping or made it pointless but it honestly don't work if you keep group dungeons and raids as your main endgame.
There are honestly 2 problems here:
1. Grouping needs to be worth the effort. The game needs to award people for learning how to group early in the game. Usually today you level faster by grinding soloquests and while the grouping gear might be slightly better you outlevel that gear in a few hours anyways.
2. All mid level grouping areas becomes pointless content after 3 months after release. Only a few players are at the level where it is worth to bother running them and still is interesting and fun.
Now this can be fixed in several ways. First of all needs running dungeons and such give far much more XP and loot than just grinding easy solo quests. Risk Vs reward is important. And dungeon gear needs to look different as well.
Secondly you need to solve the problem of people outleveling the content really fast. You can do this in many ways, like GW2 downleveling, cutting down the powergap a lot so stuff don't become grey after just a few levels. Maybe getting rid of the levels altogether while you cut the powergap..
You also needs the dungeon to drop relevant gear for the player. Mentoring down to a mid level dungeon and getting gear you just can't use wont work.
Grouping is what makes MMOs amazing but the problem is that it have been almost made pointless today. And I am not saying we need to get back to the days of EQ and M59 but we need something that makes it work again.
OP......
Your reasoning has nothing to do with why.Nor does a bad player or a bad pug have anything to do weather it is a good idea or not.
1 why build a game to play alongside others if you don't actually interact with others,it is as simple as a single player game,so again why bother with online?
2 a BAD developer and BAD game design does make a HUGE difference on the outcome.Blizzard did the same design in WOW and it proves at least to me,that MOST developers don't have any clue or business making online MMO's.
You cannot expect players to play SOLO 99% of the time,then figure those same players are going to be great interacting with others.Terrible design every dev keeps copying,you need to enforce grouping at ALL times,not just once in a while.
3 Grouping gives a combat design FAR MORE versatility and depth,so why would you not want that,unless as mentioned,your a bad developer with no clue how to do it.
What do people do in real life?Well they work with other people,you learn to help each other,get along with others.Imagine if every time we see a mistake or something we don't like,we fire all employees,there would be no work force or any owners.
bottom line ,simple answer,EA,Bioware,Blizzard and MANY more are terrible MMO designers,they should stick to single player games.You cannot simply blame a design when it has PROVEN to work ,while on the other hand we have seen that bad dev's prove they can ruin the idea totally.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
There are 2 different types of Forced Grouping. There is FFXI forced grouping which required you to have a full group to level at all where anytime you were online past level 10 you had to be in a group to do anything. Them days are gone and should never return because let’s face the facts them days you needed you would have to be in a group all the time.
Then there is FFXIV Forced grouping where you need to do the instances as you level up. This is should be done today in MMOs to show people how to play their character and play their Role. Let’s be honest here, if you can solo everything in game from level 1 to max level you become a useless player at end game. I know I played with countless people like this in every MMO starting with WOW. The only thing I will say on WOWs behalf before WOTLK came out most players knew how to play their class. The reason was because while yes classes where fairly easy in Vanilla and TBC to learn however content was not easy until WOTLK nor was there any convenience in making a group.
So that brings me to the core points why groups suck today if you are not running with friends OR trying to get a premade group of likeminded players to run an instance. The First is Convenience the Second being Easy group content, the Third is Soloing everything until max level (a way to get around doing any group content while leveling)
Convenience – The reason why convenience is bad is a few reasons. People then come to expect to run 4 instances in an hour and are in it only for themselves. You then also have the reason of people become complete ass holes because they will never see you again vs if you were a premade from the same server you will get a bad name and after a while no one will want to group with you. You also have the reason that all 4 or 5 people in that full pug might want different things out of the group not just the fastest run. Add all these together and you have shitty groups
Easy Group Content – Starting with WOTLK you could pull packs of Mobs and AOE them down then keep pulling packs of mobs until the boss. You could run instances this way over and over again using 1 or 2 buttons just to kill all the mobs. Why is this bad? How many people have you known in groups that do not even know more than a few spells? How many of them no longer pay attention to positioning and don’t care if they pull extra mobs. Yep that all started here with fast runs that required no skill no coordination to do. Just DPS with AOEs or with Rotations, never learning to CC a target or don’t pull more than 1 pack at a time, or kill orders. All of that went away with easy content.
These 2 things alone killed MMO grouping then you add in the fact that today its almost faster to just quest to max level and never having to learn your roll in a group. That would be fine however where do you expect people to learn how to group for end game content? The Answer is you don’t a large number of the player base playing solo to max level will never learn to play in a group unless the group content is Easy content like WOW instances and LFR raids are. Why do I say that? Because they will know only enough to play tank and spank content that have no mechanics that will kill you unless 23 people all go AFK at the same time. If there is any mechanic like SoO Wing 2 first boss where you need team work you will likely wipe all night.
So let’s rehash my points and look to the future.
Grouping sucks today because Convenience of LFD tools, Easy Content that can be sped through will little risk to wipe for mistakes, and solo leveling where you do not have to step into groups until max level. All 3 have killed the MMO genera. Yes I say killed because of the fact how many new MMOs come out today and are piss poor quality and groups all suck. Yep it will remain this way I would say for another 3 to 5 years until the Indie fad worn out (yes it’s a fad which will not take hold) and people will be like this sucks and quit MMOs all together for several years and forget about the games being easy. Then when a new AAA MMO comes out Grouping will be forced I feel at the level of FFXIV where you need to get groups for group content however it’s not over loaded with group content to level. This group content will require some level of knowing your role, your character and aware of what is going on around you. This content will also not be quick 15 minute runs, it will be somewhere in the range of 45 to 90 minute runs deepening do people know the content and how much needs to be explained. We will also be past an Automated group finder tool because we will likely be on Mega server technology, not 1 single server but more Mega server or 2 for a region. This will push the need for a LFD tool to the waist side and you will likely see FFXIV’s Party finder tool which is where WOW’s current Party Finder tool came from.
One last point I want to cover here is why would anyone play an MMO to do nothing but solo? If you think this is the best way then here is what you get. MMOs that fail to be Sub based MMO going F2P and finding ways to nickel and dime you every chance they get. Soon this Business model will get so bad that the pay wall will be so hard that F2P players will be paying because Greedy CEOs will want money from even this group and will force them to pay or never advance. It will come to this, US CEOs today are overly Greedy. They are no longer happy with running a business on a 30 or 40% profit margin they want to aim for 90% and will destroy their business to get that. Look at how many companies have gone under because overly greed CEOs. Its going happen here.
So what if you like to SOLO? Pay $60 for a single player game and be happy with it. An MMO is no place for that shit. Its too dam expensive to make an MMO and to operate an MMO on B2P only where Subs are not coming in, and yes this is why Cashshops will get out of hand and already hard. MMOs should be for people who want to play with other people because these people bring friends into an MMO. A SOLO player does not because they do not make friends or get involved with groups. They want to play on their own and playing a single player game is best for this.
Do you like lollipops? Suck it. Don't bite you greedy twit.
The Status Quo of the Large Companies telling us players how to play will come to an end. It's called the +, and it can only happen through the + . The + is the only WAY, TRUTH, and SPAWN.
You're all being played and you don't know why. It's understandable. That was predicted.
HAHa, so since i didnt take the time to type to your standards, i must be stupid. I could care less if I get banned or you get banned, or the whole site shuts down. As for you calling me stupid, for my discription of the group play in this game, you obviously never played the game. Your making it sounds like i didnt even hit the ball park. I told you to the t how the game is, not my opion on it, not make believe shit, go into the game, and play it for 100 hours, and come back here, and tell us all how I am wrong.
Sure MOBAs are comparable, pretty much any battleground, sorry warzone, is the same thing, team based matches with forced grouping. Ever play huttball? Are you really going to tell me in dungeons, sorry flashpoints, and raids people are not forced to group with other people in order to complete the content?
If you want to do the solo story and some crafting fine but don't act like people are not forced to group to do all the content I just mentioned because they are. On top of that my point stands that millions of people love it.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
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